Trenches are required in landscaping and yard maintenance to for example lay irrigation piping. Also, trenches often are necessary to install drainage systems or outdoor lighting. Ordinarily, digging a trench leaves the excavated earth on either one or both sides of the trench. Once the irrigation piping is laid, the trench must be backfilled with the excavated dirt.
Heretofore, backfilling has been accomplished through several different methods, each with respective drawbacks. Backfilling by hand is time and labor intensive and therefore not efficient or cost-effective. Using a scraper blade to sweep the excavated dirt back into the trench is another method but is difficult to control and often tears up too much turf on either side of the trench. Sweeping by blade also allows for large clumps of dirt to pass over the blade and therefore remain on the lawn rather than being returned to the trench. Another previous solution to backfilling is to use a leveler. Levelers generally spread too much dirt over the grass and turf and therefore increase overall cost and effort because of subsequent obligatory re-seeding. Additionally, simply re-depositing excavated dirt back into the trench likely produces the undesirable result of the dirt settling at a level below ground level.
There is a need, therefore, for equipment to backfill effectively a trench that minimizes further destruction of the turf on either side of the trench. To be effective, there is a need for equipment that backfills the excavated dirt without leaving unacceptable amounts of dirt left on the grass. Further, effective backfilling produces a raised mound that may be tamped to avoid settling of the backfill below ground level.